Occupy the SEC

If you’re a more or less regular consumer of efficient markets hypothesis Kool-Aid then a fun activity is to handicap the probability of various public policy things based on market reaction.* So for instance Obama’s budget is going to reduce the tax deductibility of munis! And the muni market didn’t care! So, no, Obama is not going to reduce the tax deductibility of munis. You heard it here first, or last, or whatever. (Exercise for the reader: is Obama going to raise the tax rate on dividends?)

Since today seems to be Volcker Day hangover it’s worth pondering this:

The more frequently you monitor your portfolio, the more likely you are to observe a loss. This is likely to cause short-sighted decisions and could hurt your investment performance. If you are checking your portfolio more than once per quarter, you’re doing it too much.